Drop what you’re doing and take 30 minutes to listen to Brooke Gladstone’s interview with Lee Rainie for the latest edition of On the Media. The two discuss the results of the Pew Center’s latest survey on the future of the Internet.

No, not even 600 “experts” can predict the future. But the discussion of the trends, implications and opportunities that will evolve in the digital age is insightful and, at least to an optimist like me, inspiring.

Among the highlights:

The Internet will become completely ubiquitous. Half the survey respondents think that’s a good thing, half think it’s a bad thing.

No matter which side of the fence you’re on, Gladstone and Rainie end up agreeing that human nature is what will be revealed. We can’t blame technology.

Digital connectivity among people is an additive function. It does not replace offline networking. In other words, people are not more lonely or spend less time socially in the real world because of the digital connectivity.

There’s nothing easier than audio content, right? Just fire up your recording software or teleseminar service and start talking away….

Well, sure… but “easy to create” doesn’t guarantee anyone will listen (or keep listening). Take some time to structure and prepare for your recording, however, and you can crank out exceptionally engaging audio content that still only takes a fraction of the time that polished writing would.

Even though you’re not producing written content, what you put down on paper before you record will make all the difference. Let’s look at outlining your audio presentation first before discussing the copywriting techniques that work as well for audio as they do for text.

The great thing about multimedia journalism is that it provides so much choice for treating stories. Do I write a straight article? Upload an mp3 interview? Produce a video package? An audio slideshow? An interactive map? Even a timeline?

“When it comes to compiling online news, the AP wants to out-Google Google. The Web search giant “has a wacky algorithm” for collecting news stories, AP Chief Executive Tom Curley says in an interview. “It does not lead people to authoritative sources.”

As an alternative, Curley plans to create “landing pages” that would host articles from any news sources that allow their headlines on the site. Participating outlets would share revenue generated by ads placed on those pages, “monetizing content in an ecosystem that would be different from the Google ecosystem,” Curley says. The sites would include both national and local media outlets. “There are some pretty exciting ways to showcase some of the core features of local newspapers,” Curley adds.”